


A Kiss Good Night

by Monkess



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-03
Updated: 2013-11-03
Packaged: 2017-12-31 09:55:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1030311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monkess/pseuds/Monkess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fairly ordinary evening in Rumplestiltskin's pink house. Books, tea, and Emma Swan needing help with a case.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Kiss Good Night

Belle had gone upstairs and to bed over an hour ahead of him, but Rumplestiltskin wasn't surprised to see light shining from underneath the door when he climbed up to the upstairs hallway. Inside their bedroom, he found Belle sitting in the bed with a book in her hands, reading by the light of the bedside table. It was raining outside. Even though the curtains were drawn, the rain pattered against the window.

When he came in, Belle looked up and then glanced at the alarm clock by her side. For a moment she looked a bit surprised. “I'll just finish this chapter and then turn off the light,” she promised, and returned her attention to the book, her brow furrowing again as she continued reading.

“Read two chapters if you like.” Rumplestiltskin placed the latest edition of the Storybrooke Mirror at the foot of the bed. “I can read the paper for a while.”

“It's fine, it's not like I'm going to finish reading this tonight,” Belle said, not lifting her gaze up from War and Peace.

Rumplestiltskin knew he was going to be very slow reading the terrible local paper, and give Belle enough time to read at least three chapters. He went to the bathroom without a hurry and returned to bed in his satiny pyjamas many minutes later with equal lack of hurry. He opened the Storybrooke Mirror and was slightly amused by the poorly drawn political satire cartoon at the bottom of the page, featuring Regina.

It continued to rain. Minutes ticked away and deeper into the night. Rumplestiltskin paused his reading when he heard Belle make an indignant little growl at the book, and turning the page.

“Everything alright, darling?” he asked.

“Andrei Bolkonsky is a prat, that's all,” Belle muttered in response.

The doorbell rang. Belle set her book down and gave Rumplestiltskin a quizzical glance. His annoyance was plain on his face, he knew, as he reached for his cane. Then Belle was already out of the bed and reaching for a nightgown to wrap into. “I'll go.”

 

Standing in the rain at night outside of Gold's house was not Emma's ideal way to spend the night. But work was work, and her job still was playing Sheriff to Storybrooke. When she'd driven up the road she'd hoped to see all the lights turned off, but there was a light on upstairs, and so she'd gotten out of her patrol car and ran to the front door in the pouring rain.

Emma glanced around at the neighbouring houses, vaguely wondering what sort of people lived next door to Gold – Rumplestiltskin – but her train of thought was interrupted when the door opened and light from the foyer flooded out into the rainy night.

“Sorry I'm here at this hour,” Emma said, turning her head, and saw it was Belle at the door. “I need to talk to Gold.”

Belle didn't seem too pleased. “Will this take long?” She asked.

“That depends entirely on him,” Emma replied.

Belle gave a not-so-sincere smile, but whether or not it was directed at Gold or herself, Emma couldn't know. “Then I guess you better come in from the rain.”

Emma stepped and shed her wet-through coat. She'd been hunting for the strange Owl Man all evening in the woods with David, but they'd had no luck catching him. David had returned home to Mary Margaret, but Emma had gone to the Blue Fairy for some help, and she'd directed Emma to Rumplestiltskin's treasure hoard in turn.

“It's Emma Swan,” Belle called upstairs, “she wants to talk to you.”

Emma felt a bit awkward then, an intruder, watching Gold's mysterious librarian girlfriend leaning against the bannister in a dressing gown and a nightie, feet bare. Emma looked around at the house, noticing everything looked a bit different from since her last visit. The room she'd stepped into looked tidier, more put together. She misheard Gold's reply, but Belle obviously hadn't.

“You're soaked through, let me take your coat. Maybe you'd like something warm to drink?”

“Oh, I'm fine,” Emma replied, her instincts automatically putting a fight against consuming anything in this house.

Belle looked concerned. “It's really no bother, and you're shivering too.” She put Emma's coat away and then asked her to follow her to the kitchen. Since Emma didn't have any rational argument against a hot beverage, she went with Belle.

“Would you like tea?” Belle asked, filling the kettle with water.

“Hot chocolate, actually, if you got any?”

Belle nodded. She turned on the kettle and went to the cupboards. “You're in luck. I just bought some, for cold nights like these.” Emma watched Belle then stare at the dish cupboard with some hesitation, before taking down the only mug, and one ornately painted tea cup and its saucer.

Emma blinked. “Is there just one mug in the entire house?” She asked.

Belle smiled as she brought the cup and the mug to the little island worktable between them. “Yes, it's mine.”

Emma looked down. The mug was the kind you could buy from any shop just big enough to carry plain every day items like that. It had blue flowers painted all along the side. The tea cup look like it was an antique. Finely detailed with red ink, depicting a view of some romantic countryside.

Belle was pouring hot water over the chocolate powder when the telltale sound of Mr Gold's cane came down the stairs and towards the kitchen.

“I made Emma a hot drink, would you like tea? There's still some water left,” Belle said.

“Yes, thank you, darling,” Gold said. He was a little dressed down from what Emma usually saw him. Just the black suit pants and a shirt.

“So, there's a guy turning young girls into swans. He transformed himself into an owl and went hiding in the woods,” Emma said, getting straight to the point, so she could get out of the house as fast as she could. “I heard you might have something that can turn the girls back to girls. It's some sort of a blanket?”

“Yes,” Gold said. He seemed distracted, looking at Belle measuring tea leaves into a coffee pot.

Emma tasted her hot chocolate, but it tasted watery. “Can I have some milk in this?” She asked.

“But of course,” Belle said, but Gold made it to the fridge before her.

“Thanks,” Emma said, trying to mask her slight trepidation under her usual stone-faced manner. After all, Gold had not-really-that-long-ago promised to kill Emma herself, as well as her parents and Henry. Maybe it wasn't, under the circumstances, fair to return to that memory, Emma thought, and poured some milk into her coco.

“The blanket is in a box up in the attic. You'll need special gloves to touch it, or it'll burn you,” Gold said, pouring milk into Belle's tea cup, before putting it back to the fridge.

“Burns?” Emma asked. “What, is it on fire?”

“No. It's knitted from nettle leaves,” Gold said, and went to get himself a tea cup identical to the one Belle had.

Emma felt strange, watching Gold and Belle being and acting so... weirdly domestic and normal.

“How special are these gloves I'll need?” Emma asked.

Gold seemed amused then. “Try boxing gloves.”

Belle grabbed her cup and sipped it. “Then how are you going to retrieve it?” She asked.

“It's in a box. I won't have to open it in order to give it to Emma,” Gold replied. “Just a moment while I go find it.”

Emma tried to drink down her hot chocolate as fast as she could, but it was still pretty hot. Belle was quiet too, for a while, drinking hers.

“So, how are you?” Belle asked.

Emma replied with a tight smile. “I'm just peachy. And you?”

“I've been reading War and Peace. It sort of reminds me of home. Back in our world.”

Emma nodded. “How about that.”

“My homeland was at war when I met him,” Belle said, glancing upstairs. “But it was with Ogres, not Napoleon.”

“Ogres is probably a lot worse than Napoleon,” Emma said, smiling at her own memories of the fairy tale land.

“Do you want more to drink?” Belle asked, noticing Emma's mug was almost empty.

“No thanks, I'm fine. I feel a lot warmer already. Thank you. Belle.” Emma sauntered a little bit out of the kitchen and glanced about the darkened rooms and at the staircase, expecting Gold's return.

No sooner did he return and Belle was pouring tea for him from the tea pot.

The box was wood, and it came with a key. Emma deposited the key into her jeans pocket and thanked Gold for his trouble.

“So, do you know anything about this owl guy?”

Gold gave her a piercing glance, seeming reluctant to answer, but then Belle was there, by Emma's shoulder beaming at him.

“His name is von Rothbart, and he has a magical cloak that turns him into an owl, amongst other things. Get the cloak, you get him,” Gold said.

“I'll go and get your coat,” Belle told Emma, “I hope it's a bit more dry than when you walked in.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it,” Emma said. “I'll go and save those swans then.”

“Remember the gloves!” Belle said, as they showed her out of the house.

“Yeah, of course,” Emma replied and strolled out into the night and the rain, both hands full of an ornate wooden box. She wondered if she could open the car without having to put the box down on the wet pavement.

 

Belle washed up Emma's mug and her own cup while Rumplestiltskin drank his tea. Belle had put peppermint leaves in the pot, to save his sleep. It had been a little cold upstairs in the bedroom perhaps, and the warm drink had been welcome.

“Here, let me wash that up too,” Belle said, and cleansed and rinsed everything. “So you couldn't come down without dressing up?” She grinned.

“I don't want a reputation as someone meeting people in satin pyjamas,” Rumplestiltskin replied.

“You meet me in that all the time,” Belle replied, and pecked a kiss on his cheek.

He smiled slyly and kissed her briefly on the lips. “You're a bit more special,” he whispered.

Belle smiled all the way upstairs. She brushed her teeth again, while Rumplestiltskin changed back into his bedtime attire.

This time, when they went into bed, both turned off the lights on their respective sides. Belle rolled a little closer to Rumplestiltskin and put her hand on his chest as she leaned to give him a kiss good night. It was fairly long, but so it was, every night.


End file.
